So its Thursday night and I’m home alone. I’m sitting at my desk working on some Linear Algebra homework, as always, and I start to hear lots of noise coming from the apartment below mine. I didn’t really know what was going on, but it wasn’t enough to bother me. At least, until the police officer rang my doorbell.

“Hi sir. Um, your neighbour as been arrested.”

“Huh?”

“He’ll likely be released tomorrow, but we’re like you to take care of his dog for the night. Oh, and his cat.”

“Huh?”

This whole thing was quite sketchy, I thought. This guy was not in uniform, first of all, so I wasn’t really inclined to believe him. I kept peeking around the balcony to see if I could spot his partner or see what was going on in the other apartment. He could tell I was not convinced and showed me his badge. Anyway, somehow or another I ended up with a dog and a cat in my apartment for the night.

This dog, let’s say, was something else. It was clearly not the healthiest of dogs. He was an absolute coward too, afraid of every movement I made and unwilling to go anywhere I wanted him to. When I told Audrey about him, she suggested calling him Scaredy-cat, so that is now his name. The cat was alright. She was one of these snotty white Persian things, and she shed everywhere, so her name became Furball.

Between the cat spewing hair everywhere whenever she moved, the dog peeing everywhere except outside, me not having any supplies like a lease or litter box, having an assignment still to finish, and needing to go to school the next day, I know that taking in these animals for a night was not something that was really going to work out very well. So I called my local police station, told them my situation, and asked that they take the animals away.

I had quite a time explaining to the two police officers who came over what these two animals were doing in my possesion. Once I finally emphasised that these were not my animals, nor the animals of anybody I knew, and that they were forced upon me by another police office, they agreed to take them away. Scaredy-Cat wasn’t much of a problem to get down to the squad car, although I literally had to carry him. We tried using an extension cord as a leash at first, which would have worked save for the fact that his ‘collar’ was just a belt cut a little too big fastened around his neck. Alright whatever.

However, Furball flipped out once she was outside and ran away down some alleyway. The two cops and I then got to spend twenty minutes coaxing her now all muddy self down from a fence. The cops took her to the squad car and said they’d be back to tell me the address, but once Furball continued flipping out inside the squad car and put a lovely red gash in one of the officer’s faces, they decided to leave her behind for the time being.

Two days later, two days after the cops said they’d be right back for Furball and with the address, a day later than my neighbour was supposed to get back, and two piles of cat shit and piss later, I decided enough was enough. This time however, the local police station claimed to know nothing about the events of last Thursday would not send another squad car out for a stupid old cat. They told me to call something called the Garage Municipale (where I gather the city sends stray dogs), who told me to call the SPCA, and then the central Montreal Police, who told me to call the local police station again, who told me to call the central Police again….

Anyway, after getting angry to five or six different people, I finally get a constable at the local station on my side. Finally! Somebody knows the whole story! It still required calling the central police to get a car dispatched (which itself required someone checking with their supervisor who called my local station again) but at least someone was finally going to take Furball off my hands!

The two police officers who came were very nice and already knew the whole story, which was a refreshing change from having to explain it to everybody. We had to put Furball into a cardboard box and seal it with packing tape, but we finally got her out. Oh man this was one annoying cat.